Saturday, July 30, 2011

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Digby does have a way with words:

America in the 21st century is a post-modern epistemological relativist state in which the right creates its own alternate reality in real time. And there's nobody to sort it out because the press gives equal weight to everyone. This is the world that produced Tea Partying congressmen who believe that default on the national debt is a rational policy to shrink government. Post-modern epistemological relativism

Obama says the big problem with the debt is all the tax breaks for corporate jet owners:

"Nearly 90 percent of President Obama’s domestic travel in the first six months of this year has been either partially or entirely political, and almost all the costs are borne by taxpayers, according to a White House Dossier Analysis.

Since returning from vacation in Hawaii Jan. 4, Obama has embarked on 25 domestic trips involving use of Air Force One. Of the total, 22 have involved either a fundraiser, travel to a presidential battleground state, or both.

Only three times has the president traveled for purely non-political purposes: a trip to visit flooding victims in Tennessee; a visit to New York City to meet with 9/11 families and lay a wreath; and a trip to Albany, New York to speak about the economy.

Obama has traveled to 2012 campaign battleground states 16 times, hitting key states like Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Michgan and Wisconsin and landing multiple times in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, electoral vote-rich states he needs to win.

Of the 11 excursions Obama has made that included a fundraiser, nine have also featured an “official” event, which helps the Obama campaign stick more of the bill to taxpayers. While it is impossible to prove that the official events were solely created to defray campaign travel costs, it is widely assumed that this White House and those that preceded it map official travel at least in part to mitigate the cost of jetting around the country to raise money and campaign.

The most egregious of these kinds of voyages appears to have occurred on April 27, when Obama and the first lady jetted to Chicago to tape the Oprah Winfrey show, and then the president flew on to New York for fundraisers. Mrs. Obama flew directly back to Washington, creating an expense for taxpayers instead of for Mrs. Winfrey, who presumably could have flown to the White House to tape the interview.

Six of Obama’s trips included both a fundraiser and a stop in a political battleground state."

First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana last week cost taxpayers well over half a million dollars, possibly in the range of $700,000 or $800,000, according to an analysis by White House Dossier.

Many of the trip’s expenses cannot be obtained with specificity, including the cost of local transportation for the first lady, Secret Service protection, the care and feeding of staffers, and pre-trip advance work done by administration officials in South Africa.

But it is possible to estimate some of these costs and put a price tag on one of the major expenses – her transportation to and from southern Africa and her trips between cities there.

While the goals of her journey – “youth leadership, education, health and wellness” in southern Africa, according to the White House – are laudable, many may question whether such an expensive outreach overseas by the president’s wife is worthwhile given the threat of the ballooning federal debt to the economy.

This is particularly true given that the trip, while featuring many official events, also included tourist components such as visits to historical landmarks and museums, a nonworking chance to meet Nelson Mandela that Mrs. Obama described as “surreal,” and a safari. Mrs. Obama also brought along her mother, her daughters and two of their cousins – the children of her brother Craig Robinson.

In a conversation last week with a South African online newspaper, U.S. Embassy Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau made clear that the trip was partially a personal pilgrimage for the first lady.

Take names. Remember them. The behavior of certain Republicans who call themselvesTea Party conservatives makes them the most destructive posse of misguided “patriots” we’ve seen in recent memory.

If the nation defaults on its financial obligations, the blame belongs to the Tea Party Republicans who fragged their own leader, John Boehner. They had victory in their hands and couldn’t bring themselves to support his debt-ceiling plan, which, if not perfect, was more than anyone could have imagined just a few months ago. No new taxes, significant spending cuts, a temporary debt-ceiling solution with the possibility of more spending cuts down the line as well as action on their beloved balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

These people wouldn’t recognize a hot fudge sundae if the cherry started talking to them.

The tick-tock of the debt-ceiling debate is too long for this space, but the bottom line is that the Tea Party got too full of itself with help from certain characters whose names you’ll want to remember when things go south. They include, among others, media personalities who need no further recognition; a handful of media-created “leaders,” including Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips and Tea Party Patriots co-founders Jenny Beth Martin andMark Meckler (both Phillips and Martindeclared bankruptcy, yet they’re advising Tea Party Republicans on debt?); a handful of outside groups that love to hurl ad hominems such as “elite” and “inside the Beltway” when talking about people like Boehner when they are, in fact, the elite (FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, Club for Growth, National Taxpayers Union,Americans for Prosperity); and elected leaders such as Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who grandstand and make political assertions and promises that are sheer fantasy.

Meanwhile, freshman House members were targeted and pressured by some of the aforementioned groups to vote against Boehner’s plan. South Carolina’s contingent was so troubled that members repaired to the chapel Thursday to pray and emerged promising to vote no. Why? Not because Jesus told them to but because they’re scared to death that DeMint will “primary” them — find someone in their own party to challenge them.

Where did they get an idea like that? Look no further than Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, where she warned freshmen about contested primaries and urged them to “remember us ‘little people’ who believed in them, donated to their campaigns, spent hours tirelessly volunteering for them, and trusted them with our votes.” Her close: “P.S. Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.” While they’re at it, they also should remember that Palin came to the Tea Party long after the invitations went out. The woman knows where to hitch a wagon.

Unfortunately for the country, which is poised to lose its place as the world’s most-trusted treasury and suffer economic repercussions we can ill afford, the stakes in this political game are too high to be in the hands of Tea Partyers who mistakenly think they have a mandate. Their sweep in the 2010 election was the exclusive result of anti-Obama sentiment and the sense that the president, in creating a health-care plan instead of focusing on jobs, had overplayed his hand. Invariably, as political pendulums swing, the victors become the very thing they sought to defeat.

Who’s overplaying their hand now?

It must be said that the Tea Party has not been monolithic — and the true grass-roots shouldn’t be conflated with leaders who disastrously signed on to the so-called “Cut, Cap and Balance” pledge. What is it with Republicans and their silly pledges? Didn’t they get enough Scouting? This pledge now has them hog-tied to a promise they can’t keep — the balanced-budget amendment. As many as a third desperately want a pardon from that commitment, according to sources close to the action.

Hubris is no one’s friend, and irony is a nag. The Tea Partyers who wanted to oust Barack Obama have greatly enhanced his chances for reelection by undermining their own leader and damaging the country in the process. The debt ceiling may have been raised and the crisis averted by the time this column appears, but that event should not erase the memory of what transpired. The Tea Party was a movement that changed the conversation in Washington, but it has steeped too long and has become toxic.

"The Tea Partyers who wanted to oust Barack Obama have greatly enhanced his chances for reelection"

anyone who believes this is so divorced from reality that they should seriously consider getting professional help

just in the last week, Obama's approval rating dipped to 40% for the first time and Dems began openly talking about alternatives for the 2012 Dem nomination

this whole episode where Obama continually made threats and deadlines that were ignored by everyone has revealed him as a weak and ineffectual loser

in a world of dark clouds, Americans don't necessarily blame Obama for all their problems but they are sure of one thing:

he isn't capable of doing a thing to improve the situation

he should move over:

"Americans now live in a world where unemployment is chronic; the economic recovery has stalled; the deficit is out of control; entitlement programs they counted on must be cut; home values are declining; banking giants have failed; the health system is about to be transformed; the country’s AAA rating is in jeopardy, and the threat of terrorism is ever-present. Violent, drug-fueled anarchy rages across the border in Mexico; European allies stumble toward bankruptcy; Iran develops nuclear weapons largely unhindered; Kim Jong-Il attacks South Korea with impunity; the Arab world is in a state of upheaval; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prevails intractably, while Israel’s enemies arm themselves with missiles and seek nuclear weapons; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can’t even eradicate a nuisance like Muammar Qadhafi; China threatens to surpass us economically and challenge us militarily, and it’s not even clear after Obama’s “Afghan surge” if we’re winning against the Taliban."

"Nearly half of all Americans have an unfavorable view of the tea party movement, putting it in the same company as the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey indicates that 32 percent of the public has a favorable view of the two year old anti-tax movement, which also calls for less government spending and a more limited role for the federal government in our lives. The 32 percent favorable rating is down five points from December.

Forty-seven percent of people questioned say they have an unfavorable view of the tea party, up four points from December and an increase of 21 points from January 2010. That 47 percent is virtually identical to the 48 percent unfavorable ratings for both the Democratic party and the Republican party in the same poll.

“This is the first time that a CNN poll has shown the tea party’s unfavorable ratings as high as those of the two major parties,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “It looks like the rise in the movement’s unfavorable rating has come mostly among people who make less than $50,000.”

The tea party movement’s unfavorable rating rose 15 points since October among lower-income Americans, compared to only five points among those making more than $50,000. Roughly half of all American households have incomes under $50,000, and half make more than that.

“It’s possible the drop among lower income Americans is a reaction to the tea party’s push for large cuts in government programs that help lower-income Americans, although there are certainly other factors at work,” adds Holland."

WASHINGTON — However the debt limit showdown ends, one thing is clear: under pressure from Congressional Republicans, President Obama has moved rightward on budget policy, deepening a rift within his party heading into the next election.

Entering a campaign that is shaping up as an epic clash over the parties’ divergent views on the size and role of the federal government, Republicans have changed the terms of the national debate. Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.

That has some progressive members of Congress and liberal groups arguing that by not fighting for more stimulus spending, Mr. Obama could be left with an economy still producing so few jobs by Election Day that his re-election could be threatened. Besides turning off independents, Mr. Obama risks alienating Democratic voters already disappointed by his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and his failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, end the Bush-era tax cuts and enact a government-run health insurance system.

The voting base of the Democratic Party — young people, single women, African-Americans, Latinos — are going to be so discouraged by this economy and so dismayed unless the president starts to champion a jobs program and take on the Republican Congress that the ability of labor to turn out its vote, the ability of activists to mobilize that vote, is going to be dramatically reduced.

"“The activist liberal base will support Obama because they’re terrified of the right wing,” said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal group Campaign for America’s Future.

But he said, “I believe that the voting base of the Democratic Party — young people, single women, African-Americans, Latinos — are going to be so discouraged by this economy and so dismayed unless the president starts to champion a jobs program and take on the Republican Congress that the ability of labor to turn out its vote, the ability of activists to mobilize that vote, is going to be dramatically reduced.”

While Mr. Obama and Republicans have been unable to agree on a debt reduction plan for spending cuts and revenue increases to cut $4 trillion in the first decade, on Saturday they were negotiating a deal with fewer spending cuts that would ensure the government’s debt ceiling would be increased into 2013 to avoid another deadlock in the heat of campaign season.

No matter how the immediate issue is resolved, Mr. Obama, in his failed effort for greater deficit reduction, has put on the table far more in reductions for future years’ spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, than he did in new revenue from the wealthy and corporations. He proposed fewer cuts in military spending and more in health care than a bipartisan Senate group that includes one of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans.

To win approval of the essential increase in the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing ceiling, Mr. Obama sought more in deficit reduction than Republicans did, and with fewer changes to the entitlement programs, because he was willing to raise additional revenue starting in 2013 and they were not. And despite unemployment lingering at its highest level in decades, Mr. Obama has not fought this year for a big jobs program with billions of dollars for public-works projects, which liberals in his party have clamored for. Instead, he wants to extend a temporary payroll tax cut for everyone, since Republicans will support tax cuts, despite studies showing that spending programs are generally the more effective stimulus."

Read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/us/politics/31dems.html

In fact, one measure of that selling activity shows insiders of NYSE- and AMEX-listed companies recently were selling at the fastest rate since data began being collected in the early 1970s, four decades ago.

On the theory that insiders know more about their companies’ prospects than do the rest of us, this is an ominous sign.

Corporate insiders, of course, are a company’s officers, directors and largest shareholders. They are required to file a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission more or less immediately upon buying or selling shares of their companies, and the SEC makes those reports public.

One firm that gathers and analyzes the data is Argus Research, which publishes its findings in the Vickers Weekly Insider Report. One indicator that the firm calculates is a ratio of the number of shares that insiders have sold in the open market to the number that they have purchased.

In the week ending last Friday, according to the latest issue of the Vickers report, this sell-to-buy ratio stood at 6.43 to 1. This is higher than 95% of other weeks’ readings over the last decade.

That’s ominous enough, but consider last week’s sell-to-buy ratio for just those issues listed on the NYSE or AMEX. That came in at 13.10 to 1, which is the highest reading for this ratio since when Vickers began collecting the data, which was October 1974.

Is there any way for a bull to wriggle out from underneath the weight of these high readings? Perhaps, though it’s not easy.

One counterargument bulls can make is that it’s entirely normal for insiders to sell when the market rallies, and therefore such selling does not carry particularly bearish significance.

But the stock market hasn’t exactly been rallying all that strongly. To be sure, the latest sell-to-buy ratio reflects last week, not the current one, and that week did have a better tone than the current one — but not all that great a tone.

In any case, the other occasions in recent years in which the sell-to-buy ratio rose to close to the same level it is today were on the heels of more or less uninterrupted rallies over the previous two or three months. That’s not the case now, of course, suggesting that insider selling this time around may not be so benign.

Another bullish counterargument is that the volume of insider transactions last week was light, as it usually is during earnings season. That’s because insiders are either reticent to buy or sell their companies’ shares in the days and weeks before their companies report earnings, for fear of being charged with acting improperly.

But I’m not sure how much weight to put on this argument. There still were several hundred firms with insider activity last week, and it’s unclear why earnings season would have discouraged just those insiders who otherwise were interested in buying.

Furthermore, it’s worth remembering that the extensive Vickers database encompasses many other earnings seasons besides the current one. Also, the latest insider sell-to-buy ratio is higher than almost all comparable readings from those prior seasons.

Perhaps the strongest counterargument the bulls can muster at this point is that the insiders are not infallible. That indeed is true. Still, researchers report that they have been more right than wrong.

At a minimum, I think we can all agree it can’t be good news that insiders recently have been selling at such a fast pace.

"The reported terms of the deal, amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction — and if these recommendations aren’t accepted, there will be more spending cuts.

Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending will be among the areas cut. But the G.O.P. has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members want. Why expect it to be more reasonable in the next round?

In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered last December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it’s just me, but I see a pattern here.

Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.

First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.

And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable.

At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.

But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite.

Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will."

“The activist liberal base will support Obama because they’re terrified of the right wing,”

actually, the opposite is true..."

Look who *thinks* he knows what is going on with the activist liberal base. You just made up more lies.

I was at a progressive politcal meeting yesterday afternoon with many young new activists, outraged not a single job will be created, we will cut spending while in the throes of this worsening economic downturn, but will keep the *temporary* Bush tax cuts in place ensuring our deficit will continue to grow.

All afternoon, I heard people talk about the stunts the tea baggers pulled holding the debt ceiling hostage and jeopardizing our nation's AAA rating. I heard people talk about how unfair they felt the cuts in services to the poor and sick will be, especially since the rich and the big corporations will get to keep their tax cuts and loopholes. People were clamoring to register as Democrats and volunteer to help elect them.

"Mr. Obama has been a singular failure. The crippling truth of the Obama presidency is the pessimism of the man, the low expectations he has for this republic. He had not come forth to awaken this country to its stirring first principles, but to manage its decline at home and abroad. So odd an outcome, a man with an inspiring biography who provides no inspiration, a personal story of "The Audacity of Hope" yielding a leader who deep down believes that America's best days are behind it.

Amid the enthusiasm of his ascent to power, the choreography of a brilliant campaign, and a justifiable sense of pride that an African-American had risen to the summit of political power, it had been hard to tease out the pessimism at the core of Mr. Obama's vision. His economic program—the vaunted stimulus, the bailout of the automobile industry, the determination to overhaul the entire health-care system—gave away a bureaucratic vision: It was rule by emergency decree, as it were. No Reaganesque faith in the society for this leader.

In the nature of things, Mr. Obama could not take the American people into his confidence; he could not openly take up the thesis of America's decline.

Americans' confident belief in the uniqueness, yes the exceptionalism, of their country, rested on an essential faith in liberty, and individualism and anti-statism at home, and in the power of our example, and muscle now and then, in foreign lands. Mr. Obama is ill-at-ease with that worldview. Our country has had pessimism on offer and has invariably rejected it. At crucial points in its history, it has remained unshaken in the belief that tomorrow can be better.

In 2008, shaken by a severe economic recession and disillusioned by a difficult war in Iraq, Americans voted for charisma and biography. The electorate could not be certain of the bet it made, for Mr. Obama had been agile, by his own admission he had been a blank slate onto which his varied supporters could project their hopes and preferences. Next time around, it should be easier.